Lately I’ve seen a report of the V2 incoming the USA, in the program
of german weapons.
Anybody have some info.
Thanks :arrow:
Do you mean the post-war program that imported von Braun and other German rocket scientists along with captured V-2s for experimentation at White Sands, New Mexico?
yes, that one. :arrow:
One of the main things of that was that it was part of Operation Paperclip which literally ignored any past Nazi or communist connections to allow many Germans to enter the USA. There weren’t so many rocket scientists with Nazi loyalties but there were many other people that were later used by the OSS- later the CIA- who were totally Nazis.
A large number of V-2s were brought to New Mexico and the Germans set about to build an American missile program from those V-2s. It’s been said that copies of V-2s were constructed to further research but I am not at all sure of that. Space flight was a tangible goal as well and there were 2-stage rockets using V-2 components that got to the edge of space.
Beyond the V-2 there were many surface to air, air to surface, air to air and other surface to surface missiles in development at the end of the ear in Germany. The men that worked on these projects brought their experience and test data to the USA which afforded a huge advantage over starting from nothing. All of America’s first and 2nd generation missiles inservice in the 50s-60s were developed there.
Today we take SAMs, wire guided missiles, and guided munitions of all sort for granted but they are direct descendants in concept from these feeble beginnings at White Sands.
Thanks Twitch 1.
Do you have a specification of it, range, higher altitude, etc. :arrow:
I gotta look in detail for the 2 stage altitude reached. I’ll let you know. 
OK cpl condor I got the info you want. 65 V-2 accompanied the Germans to White Sands and the project was called Project Hermes.
A smaller WAC-Corporal rocket was put on top of a V-2. The combination was called “Bumper-WAC”. There were a total of 8 Bumper-WAC shots, the first May 1948, but only the fifth, in February 1949. It went perfectly with the rocket reaching an altitude of 244 miles. A rocket had finally reached above the atmosphere into space.
After the old V-2s were shot new missiles were developed by von Braun’s team. The Redstone was the most famous of them.
Though the Soviets got possession of the Peenemunda test facility, it had been stripped of everything useful by the Americans. When Sov rocket boss Korolyev got there no V-2s remained and they had to build their own V-2s from plans beginning in 1946 with the 1st launch in the end of 1947.
Twitch wrote:
The men that worked on these projects brought their experience and test data to the USA which afforded a huge advantage over starting from nothing.
My bold
At this stage, twitch there were already allied designs and research in to all of these areas. The nazi/german expertise merely gave new insights to the whole thing. The Americans and British were definitly not starting from nothing when they came over.
As early as 1942 there were radio controlled glider bombs with other developments coming behind.
Thats strange? As far as I know Peenemunde was never occupied by US forces and was occupied by the Soviets on 5 May 1945. In fact no Western Allied soldiers penetrated so far East. Do you have any references to prove that US forces penetrated so far into the Eastern half of Germany?
Of course the facilities at Nordhausen were liberated by the US. Where 20,000 Slave labourers had died to produce the V2’s, which killed just over 2,000 during their use. I always find that figure amazing, of course the Nazis didnt give a hoot for the slaves, Herr von Braun included!
The British began bombing Peenemunde in 1943 and succeeded in killing Dr. Walter Thiel who was the chief engines designer, they also destroyed most of the facility in time as well as a lot of the plans, its only a pity they didnt get von Braun as well I think as that may have put the project back even further, possibly even postponed it for good. If it had gone on uninterupted it was due to be activated before the V-1, I’m not sure how that would have affected the war though.
It is my belief that niether of the “vengence” weapons really did much in the way of damage in comparison to the more “traditional” contempory methods.
Top and bottom of it is that the V-1 and V-2 were simply unable to carry the ordinance, nor accuratley deliver it. Didn’t the V-1s drop when the fuel they carried ran out? Thus the only real way of targeting was to set the compass, which had something like 20 degrees error, and calculate fuel. Accuracy, a reletive term even when compared to the night and day bomber raids, was poor.
As for the Nazi idea that they would spread panic throughout London, etc. Nope, these were the same people who had sat in their Anderson Shelters night after night, whilst the Luftwaffe dropped tons of bombs and fire bombs on their cities, and returned to work the next day. A single V-1 or V-2 payload didn’t carry the same menace at all.
Just a straw.
There is a good timeline about peenemunde here…
http://www.astronautix.com/sites/peeuende.htm
I particularly like the following quotes…
1944 Oct 30 - Wasserfall test V-2, Wasserfall. Apogee: 18 km. Range: 26 km.
The Wasserfall surface to air missile was launched from a table, as was the V-2. The missile was optically steered to its target, and had a potential range of 26 km and ceiling of 18 km, with a flight speed of 600 m/s. Goering observed the first launch from Test Stand IX. He was immensely fat, wearing a fantastical outfit, downing pills every five minutes, and uninterested in the proceedings. Dornberger ruefully noted that the Reich is losing the war due to the leadership’s shortsightedness. They had not accepted Von Braun’s rocket plans in 1939 or the Panzerfaust in 1942. They only became interested in the latter when the first American bazooka fell into German hands in Tunisia.
and for you Firefly
Late February 1945 - Final Von Braun visit to Peenemuende V-2. All launch activity has been shut down.
1945 May 5 - Peenemünde occupied. V-2. Russian ground forces occupied Peenemünde, Germany.
1945 May 5 - Soviet Army occupies Peenemuende.
Little is found. Western intelligence is convinced that the Soviets conduct missile tests from Peenemuende in the late 1940’s (the Scandinavian ‘ghost rockets’). But Russian historical sources available after the downfall of the Soviet Union do not support this belief.
It is more likely the Nazis stripped out the facility when they shut down the facilty. Maybe moving the equipment and research to another location for more activity.
Interesting to note is the Nazi plan for train launched V2s. Given that at the time the combined allied airforces were tearing up trains allez uber da platz this would have been catestrophic to bring in surely!!!
As noted in
1945 Jan 15 - Train-launched A4 abandoned. V-2. Allied air superiority made the train-launched version unviable as a weapon, compared to the truck-towed missile, which was more easily moved and concealed. Further work on the system was abandoned.
I believe the Yanks placed minutemenIII for launch from trains, can anyone confirm, although don’t recall them ever being used in service.
Also al la “Scorpians Sting” author can’t remember.
Fall 1943 - Submarine-launched V-2 V-2.
Director Lafferenz of the German Worker’s Front proposed towing of a 3 m diameter x 30 m long capsule containing a single V-2 by submarine. This was later refined to a single submarine towing three 500 tonne capsules, each with a V-2, its propellants, and launch equipment. At the launch point water tanks would be flooded in the capsule to bring it upright, with the top above the surface. The top would be opened, then launch troops would enter to prepare and fuel the rocket, followed by launch. But the pressing problem of solving the A4’s reliability problems and getting it into production delayed any further work on the concept until the end of 1944.
1944 Dec 15 - Submarine-launched A4 work resumes. V-2. The first construction drawings were released for the submarine-launched version.
1945 Feb 7 - Submarine-launched A4 abandoned. V-2. Evacuation of Peenemuende brought work on the submarine-towed version to an end.
Not quite the same as in the book, a lorry launcher is welded to the rear of the U-boat for a A bomb missile launch on America. However for a V-2 to be towed by U-Boat I would surmise the target would be America, as Britain and other countries involved were all in range of Germany land based launchers. Wouldn’t want to attempt to fuel the V-2 in a bobbing launcher tube though!!!
Have just found this in the wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peenemünde
Turns out the yanks never got to Peenemunde but the Brits did!!! Any idea how we managed to get there? It must have been by invitatation of the Russians.
At the end of World War II von Braun and most of the scientists fled westwards to ensure their capture by the Americans. The Soviets and British captured the site and most of the technicians, who feared trial for war crimes for the V-2 attacks on London.
my bold.
Sorry to post so many posts
further reading here
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/makeup/backfire.html
http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/v1v2.htm
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/V-2_rocket
This site also states that liquid propellant rockets were tested as early as 1927 (if not before), so I doubt that either the Brits or Americans had a standing start requireing German help in 1945.
As early as 1927 members of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR) (“Spaceflight Society”) had started experimenting with liquid-fuelled rockets. Rockets using a solid propellant had been used as weapons by all sides in WWI, and as a result, the Treaty of Versailles forbade solid fuel rocket research in Germany.
also
The V-2 was militarily ineffective. Its guidance systems were too primitive to hit specific targets, and its costs were approximately equivalent to four-engined bombers, which were more accurate (though only in a relative sense—see discussion in strategic bomber), had longer ranges, carried many more warheads, and were reusable. Nevertheless, it had a considerable psychological effect as, unlike bombing planes or the V1 Flying Bomb, which made a characteristic buzzing sound, the V-2 travelled faster than the speed of sound, with no warning before impact and no possibility of defense. The British were able to redirect V-1’s and V-2’s aimed at London to less populated areas east of the city by sending false impact reports via the German espionage network in Britain, which was actually controlled by the British. See: Double Cross System.
A submarine towed launch platform was tested successfully, effectively making it the prototype for submarine launched ballistic missiles. The project codename was Prufstand XII. If deployed, it would have allowed a U-boat to launch V-2 missiles against American cities, though only with considerable effort (and likely limited effect).
Twelve V-2 rockets were shipped to the Japanese by U-boat in dismantled condition. These left Bordeaux in August 1944 on transport U-boats U-219 and U-195 reaching Djakarta in December 1944. A civilian V-2 expert was also a VIP passenger on the U-234 bound for Japan in May 1945 when the war ended in Europe. The fate of these V-2 rockets is unknown.
from http://museum.woolworths.co.uk/1940s-remembernewcross.htm
At the end of the war Wernher Von Braun marched his rocket technicians over 50 kilometres across country to make sure that they were captured by American rather than Russian troops. Weeks later he and the whole team were starting new lives in America. His built the first Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, launched television satellites and in 1961 John F. Kennedy invited him to lead Saturn 5 - the Apollo “man on the moon project”. He accepted.
Von Braun took dual American and German citizenship and rarely talked of the war years. He was, he said, a patriot who answered his country’s call - if he had not, someone else would. As for the rocket, he said “The V2 flew very well, the only trouble is that it landed on the wrong planet.” What price a man on the moon?
The Wikipedia reference to teh British and Russian capture of Peenemunde may be more to do with the British bombing (ie Op Hydra) and the Russian ground assault.
Curse you condor for starting such an engrossing topic!!!
Prufstand XII or the submarine towed V2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_u-boat
Prufstand XII and other sub launched rockets…
http://www.prinzeugen.com/V2.htm
Interesting, it seems that the Russians and british got their hands on V2’s long before May 1945. This is a very interesting site - V2’s and Soviets.
Also, if you read further, it seems that the Russians also got a head start on the US and far from only building the V2 in 1947 seemed to be actively involved in building them in 1945, before the US. This maybe explains why Soviet Rockets had the advantage over the US ones in the early cold war?
In fact its a pretty interesting site for any Rocket enthusiast.
I agree with 1000yds, a very interesting topic.
From memory they thought about it and rejected the idea. The problem is that a train is a pretty soft target for a nuclear strike, and a railway line is a relatively easy target for a nuclear strike - it’s on maps, a near miss is good enough and mapping it by satellite is pretty easy too. Moving missile trains about (which you’d have to do to avoid them being sitting ducks) will screw up the scheduling for everything else too.
In the end, I think it works out that silo based or road mobile missiles are both less vulnerable, and of course SSBNs are massively less so.
In train.
Test.
In USA.
Panzerknacker- great pics! Peenemunda was stripped of all things useful by von Braun including all his research data and sent to the US sector at Nordhausen. They got everything and the Russians got broken urinals. The fact of the matter is that the Allies had nothing anywhere near as sophisticated as the V-2. The Americans made some junky V-1 copy that never went into service along with a radio guided bomb used in less numbers than the Fritz X. No one had anything remotely resembling a surface to surface strategic missile. The US missile that was to have been moved by rail was the MX but that was changed.
So the Russians got nothing then?
That only means that starting from scratch the Soviets outperformed US with their boost by the Germans in the Rocket world to put up the first Satelite and the first Human!
So much for crappy Bolshevik technology eh! Seems like von Braun wasnt the King after all.
The Americans made some junky V-1 copy that never went into service along with a radio guided bomb used in less numbers than the Fritz X.
Now I understand why is that called the JV-1 :shock:
The guided bomb was the Bat, I read somewhere that one of those sunk a japanese destroyer.